Journals
- Journals
- Posted by
2muchvideogames
UPDATE: MAX_MAP_MIPTEX
Goldsource, the old thing.
I am done with half the map that I am making now, and I found that there is a limit on how many textures can be used in a single map (up to 3.4 MB or something). At this point I've only got half the map. Now, fellow mappers, you know prolly how this goes. I am thinking that it would seem that I must sacrifice texture variety in order to finish the map. Anybody out here have a feasible alternative to sacrificing texture variety?
Oh boy, this map is getting big. And I'm still a crapmapper.
OH BUT HEY! While your still hanging around (ok fine, "You're" still hanging around,) Why not go play another one of my top-listed mods?
Let's see... here!
Mod name: TIME SHADOWS
Mod Origin: France
Mod Overview: Want to play Blizzard's DIABLO (one not two) in Half-life? NOW YOU CAN! YEAH! BUT WAIT IT'S in ALPHA DEVELOPMENT
You start out in the town Tristram, it's really well done exempting the fact that there are nobody around, and it seems to be nighttime (meaning you can't see where you're going) You wander into a teleport and end up in front of the church that you remember from playing Diablo One. So far so good, the architecture really reminds you of the actual game.
You pick up a hand axe and venture into the dungeon, fighting skeletons. And then some skeletons. More skeletons... ok here comes more skeletons, um.. anything else? I like how they display the skeletons' stats at the bottom of the screen just like in the actual game! But aside from that you will be fighting skeletons, and only skeletons. Have fun.
Oh I mentioned it's in alpha development... this is the entire game, no joke. But it's based off Diablo! That alone should get you to see this mod if not only for the novelty of this novel idea. Now go learn french so you can figure out what the in-game text says. Good luck, hero.
Goldsource, the old thing.
I am done with half the map that I am making now, and I found that there is a limit on how many textures can be used in a single map (up to 3.4 MB or something). At this point I've only got half the map. Now, fellow mappers, you know prolly how this goes. I am thinking that it would seem that I must sacrifice texture variety in order to finish the map. Anybody out here have a feasible alternative to sacrificing texture variety?
Oh boy, this map is getting big. And I'm still a crapmapper.
OH BUT HEY! While your still hanging around (ok fine, "You're" still hanging around,) Why not go play another one of my top-listed mods?
Let's see... here!
Mod name: TIME SHADOWS
Mod Origin: France
Mod Overview: Want to play Blizzard's DIABLO (one not two) in Half-life? NOW YOU CAN! YEAH! BUT WAIT IT'S in ALPHA DEVELOPMENT
You start out in the town Tristram, it's really well done exempting the fact that there are nobody around, and it seems to be nighttime (meaning you can't see where you're going) You wander into a teleport and end up in front of the church that you remember from playing Diablo One. So far so good, the architecture really reminds you of the actual game.
You pick up a hand axe and venture into the dungeon, fighting skeletons. And then some skeletons. More skeletons... ok here comes more skeletons, um.. anything else? I like how they display the skeletons' stats at the bottom of the screen just like in the actual game! But aside from that you will be fighting skeletons, and only skeletons. Have fun.
Oh I mentioned it's in alpha development... this is the entire game, no joke. But it's based off Diablo! That alone should get you to see this mod if not only for the novelty of this novel idea. Now go learn french so you can figure out what the in-game text says. Good luck, hero.
Finally a competition.
Using my petite mapping skills I think I can definitely get before the deadline. From past competitions I can tell that the trend is that there is a dearth of entries in most of the competitions.
But on to my mod adventures. (For those of you who pointed it out, yes this is not a professional review, more or less a personal excursion. If you want reviews you can search online for the defunct Hangar 16, just make sure to turn on your pop up blocker once you find it. And yes it exists. At least parts of it.)
Today's mod is: HLDino, a dinosaur themed mod. (maybe)
This is another example of the sort of mods that, as mentioned in my biography, are master pieces that I strive to realize. You start out on a beach with an ak47 from counter-strike. Up ahead you run into dinosaurs from Gunman Chronicles, and they spitting green globs at you WTF. And across the beachhead you see zombies. WTF.
Your ak is surprisingly weak. As you (try to) deal with the oncoming hordes of dinosaurs and blood soaked zombies, you realize that you are dealing not with zombies and rabid reptiles, but infinite monstermakers. So you run and gun, but most run because ammo is a luxury. Eventually you make it to the sewers and that's it.
A mod like this one proves that gameplay is king, and that backstory, reasons for borrowing models from other mods, and making sense are not crucial to great gameplay. I have duly learned this valuable lesson and shall proceed to map based on what I just learned. Maybe you will too, but prolly not.
Using my petite mapping skills I think I can definitely get before the deadline. From past competitions I can tell that the trend is that there is a dearth of entries in most of the competitions.
But on to my mod adventures. (For those of you who pointed it out, yes this is not a professional review, more or less a personal excursion. If you want reviews you can search online for the defunct Hangar 16, just make sure to turn on your pop up blocker once you find it. And yes it exists. At least parts of it.)
Today's mod is: HLDino, a dinosaur themed mod. (maybe)
This is another example of the sort of mods that, as mentioned in my biography, are master pieces that I strive to realize. You start out on a beach with an ak47 from counter-strike. Up ahead you run into dinosaurs from Gunman Chronicles, and they spitting green globs at you WTF. And across the beachhead you see zombies. WTF.
Your ak is surprisingly weak. As you (try to) deal with the oncoming hordes of dinosaurs and blood soaked zombies, you realize that you are dealing not with zombies and rabid reptiles, but infinite monstermakers. So you run and gun, but most run because ammo is a luxury. Eventually you make it to the sewers and that's it.
A mod like this one proves that gameplay is king, and that backstory, reasons for borrowing models from other mods, and making sense are not crucial to great gameplay. I have duly learned this valuable lesson and shall proceed to map based on what I just learned. Maybe you will too, but prolly not.
I just played a mod called doomed-life. And no wonder this is a doomed mod.
You start out in a ruined futuristic city of some sort. You have no clue what your supposed to do other than to not fall off the buildings. But the rocks randomly crumble so ya dun know what to tread on. You supposed to get jump around to a little balcony with a door that opens. There your HEV suit is waiting for you and there appears to be a time machine that you need to get into. This time machine is so cool that upon entering you are instantly transported to the specified point in time. No env_sprites were used.
In your case, the destination is 1998 Chile for some reason. You wander around a canyon sort of area and eventually find a cool-looking remodeled MP5SD in the back of a jeep. Up to this point your only weapons are crowbar and a 25-bullets of mp5. And up ahead are two grunts.
Just kidding they weren't much of a problem because they were looking the other way from where I arrived. But the next part is ugly.
You make it into an installation filled inexplicably with scientists and security guards. ALL OF THESE PEOPLE ARE FACING THE EXACT SAME WAY. This suggests to me that they were all put into the map with the default facing "0" angle. Also there are no such thing as scripted sequences.
SOME QUIRKS ABOUT THIS SCIENCE FACILITY
Pressing the button in the corner causes some action, where the cage breaks and a random spot on the floor also gives way. It may not be intuitive but you need to take a dive into the hole on the floor.
Most of the gameplay after this point involves finding buttons to open doors. These puzzle elements progressively get more "challenging" as the mappers still have doors that close 4 seconds after they are opened. But that's only the first slice of this fun little mod.
There is one point where a tank is activated by you to kill 5-7 grunts and make a big hole on the ground (sounds familiar). You jump into the hole, but comeout on the otherside into a rural farm area, with a little wheat field, a barn, and a cool looking medieval-like house. The front door is locked.
This may seem non-intuitive, but you need to break the second window to the right of the front door (the first window is unbreakable) and break enter into the house. Then the text message "It's freeman, call the police!" or something comes up. You are then taken to prison.
In prison, the map changes and you are taken to a different prison. The wall behind you crumbles to give you a crowbar. You try to break out of jail, but near the exit the words "freeman's escaping, get him!" or something comes up and you are taken to another prison. (Whoa, the prison motif seems a bit overdone at this point.)
This prison, has a grunt guarding it. But this prison also has func_illusionary floor. SO you fall thru into a water pit, where there are spikes at the bottom. Where do you go? The spikes, smart. You swim towards the spikes, whereas a mapchange takes you to some weirdo hallucination chamber with checkered walls. You are given a .357 and one little box of extra ammo.
In hallucinoworld, you meet bullsquids, houndeyes, and alien grunts. (The grunt randomly falls in front of you thru the ceiling). Then, the hallway ends and you are stuck figuring out what to do. You are supposed to "use" the wall to the right which will cause the end wall to crumble for no adequately explored reason. But behind the wall are three alien slaves, and they are very happy to see you (and give you a shocking experience).
After the slaves got some potshots at me I kill them off with my .357 easily. But then the floor crumbles again and I fall and end up in some weird tomb looking area. This is very coherent storyline, by the way.
I wander ahead thru the tomb and three headcrabs fall from the ceiling. Haven't we seen this tactic used before. I just run pass them because there not worth .357 ammo.
I ran ahead and the floor gave way to a spike trap, but I luckily didn't fall into it. I figured that this may be another mapchange (like the other one from prison) but I tested it first. I had lured a headcrab to jump into the spike pit to see what happens. It was gibbed bad. I then decided not to jump into the pit of pointy world brushes.
up ahead is a dead end with two random rooms each to the left and to the right. Both auxillary rooms have buttons that must be pressed, which each breaks off a bit of the end wall to reveal another passageway (creative or noobish, you tell me.)
I went ahead and got pressed flat by something that jetted out of the ceiling. Dead.
...and then I found out that there were zero autosaves in the entire game up to this point...
I could tell you what happened next, but what's the point? Get this mod now!! You have to experience this for yourself to know how great an experience this is.
You start out in a ruined futuristic city of some sort. You have no clue what your supposed to do other than to not fall off the buildings. But the rocks randomly crumble so ya dun know what to tread on. You supposed to get jump around to a little balcony with a door that opens. There your HEV suit is waiting for you and there appears to be a time machine that you need to get into. This time machine is so cool that upon entering you are instantly transported to the specified point in time. No env_sprites were used.
In your case, the destination is 1998 Chile for some reason. You wander around a canyon sort of area and eventually find a cool-looking remodeled MP5SD in the back of a jeep. Up to this point your only weapons are crowbar and a 25-bullets of mp5. And up ahead are two grunts.
Just kidding they weren't much of a problem because they were looking the other way from where I arrived. But the next part is ugly.
You make it into an installation filled inexplicably with scientists and security guards. ALL OF THESE PEOPLE ARE FACING THE EXACT SAME WAY. This suggests to me that they were all put into the map with the default facing "0" angle. Also there are no such thing as scripted sequences.
SOME QUIRKS ABOUT THIS SCIENCE FACILITY
- there is a headcrap in a glass tank jumping around and tried to claw me to death. But there is a barney right next to him.
- there is a button you needs to press to open a certain door, but the "delay before close" on that door is 4, so you have to press the button and madly dash to the door before it closes.
Pressing the button in the corner causes some action, where the cage breaks and a random spot on the floor also gives way. It may not be intuitive but you need to take a dive into the hole on the floor.
Most of the gameplay after this point involves finding buttons to open doors. These puzzle elements progressively get more "challenging" as the mappers still have doors that close 4 seconds after they are opened. But that's only the first slice of this fun little mod.
There is one point where a tank is activated by you to kill 5-7 grunts and make a big hole on the ground (sounds familiar). You jump into the hole, but comeout on the otherside into a rural farm area, with a little wheat field, a barn, and a cool looking medieval-like house. The front door is locked.
This may seem non-intuitive, but you need to break the second window to the right of the front door (the first window is unbreakable) and break enter into the house. Then the text message "It's freeman, call the police!" or something comes up. You are then taken to prison.
In prison, the map changes and you are taken to a different prison. The wall behind you crumbles to give you a crowbar. You try to break out of jail, but near the exit the words "freeman's escaping, get him!" or something comes up and you are taken to another prison. (Whoa, the prison motif seems a bit overdone at this point.)
This prison, has a grunt guarding it. But this prison also has func_illusionary floor. SO you fall thru into a water pit, where there are spikes at the bottom. Where do you go? The spikes, smart. You swim towards the spikes, whereas a mapchange takes you to some weirdo hallucination chamber with checkered walls. You are given a .357 and one little box of extra ammo.
In hallucinoworld, you meet bullsquids, houndeyes, and alien grunts. (The grunt randomly falls in front of you thru the ceiling). Then, the hallway ends and you are stuck figuring out what to do. You are supposed to "use" the wall to the right which will cause the end wall to crumble for no adequately explored reason. But behind the wall are three alien slaves, and they are very happy to see you (and give you a shocking experience).
After the slaves got some potshots at me I kill them off with my .357 easily. But then the floor crumbles again and I fall and end up in some weird tomb looking area. This is very coherent storyline, by the way.
I wander ahead thru the tomb and three headcrabs fall from the ceiling. Haven't we seen this tactic used before. I just run pass them because there not worth .357 ammo.
I ran ahead and the floor gave way to a spike trap, but I luckily didn't fall into it. I figured that this may be another mapchange (like the other one from prison) but I tested it first. I had lured a headcrab to jump into the spike pit to see what happens. It was gibbed bad. I then decided not to jump into the pit of pointy world brushes.
up ahead is a dead end with two random rooms each to the left and to the right. Both auxillary rooms have buttons that must be pressed, which each breaks off a bit of the end wall to reveal another passageway (creative or noobish, you tell me.)
I went ahead and got pressed flat by something that jetted out of the ceiling. Dead.
...and then I found out that there were zero autosaves in the entire game up to this point...
I could tell you what happened next, but what's the point? Get this mod now!! You have to experience this for yourself to know how great an experience this is.
I just played that one HL1 mod called Reissues.
Low quality reviews for each separate piece
ECHO TRANSIT
This is the first one I played. It feels alot like Blue shift maybee because of the familiar looking teleport machine. The problem is software mode. That outdoor cargo bay has so much crap that nothing renders and I had to use openGL. That's bad because frame rates drop considerable in openGL. I see this is a great one with lots of script and action, but with the crummy frame rates I died a disproportionate amount of times. Sorry. My fault.
ENCAMPED
Crashed on startup. There was an error message but I don't think I'll bother.
ITS SAFER HERE
No, its not. The sky is all black, you'd think the sky was set to black. But I know it isn't. Because I did the quicksave-quickload thing, and the sky appears as normal. But then all the world brushes disappear, and that's even worse. So I played through without messing with the sky, but that came back to bite me and always crashed HL at a specific point in the second map. From what I played it seems to borrow heavily from Half Life 2, which is very nice. Very nice.
LABCOATS REQUIRED
A very basic map. Most rudimentary of all in the mod package. But I admit it's better than what I can come up with.
SECOND WIND
This is the one with the cliff, right? Oh, yes. Another reason why jaw dropping scenery is not good for Mr. plays-HL-in-software-mode. At one point with the gargantua, I searched and noclipped for how to advance, but couldn't find it. Eventually, I saw a ladder that was very subtly hidden, and I find I couldn't even see it from where I came from. But I refuse to switch to openGL.
COIL
I got hopelessly lost. But I admit the architecture is superb. But that doesn't change the fact that I got hopelessly lost.
SCEPTER OF RA
I like custom content. But it sucks with the locust storm outside the tomb. Why? Because the locust storm drives the framerates down, just like if you fall off the cliff in SECOND WIND. By now you're wondering if I'm using a windows 98. I am not going to answer that.
STARLABS
Good mapping. At one point the rocks fall and crumble the area but the rocks didn't fall and nothing crumbled the area. Therefore I was hopelessly stuck.
TRAINING MAP
The bane of all maps. Everything went well until up to the top floor. I went out side, and soon as I hit the "storm" button, everything freezes. And that's worse than crashing because I couldn't even see the task manager when I try to force close the program.
Main idea: The maps all are top notch, but my comp couldn't keep up with them. I blame my comp for this mess.
Low quality reviews for each separate piece
ECHO TRANSIT
This is the first one I played. It feels alot like Blue shift maybee because of the familiar looking teleport machine. The problem is software mode. That outdoor cargo bay has so much crap that nothing renders and I had to use openGL. That's bad because frame rates drop considerable in openGL. I see this is a great one with lots of script and action, but with the crummy frame rates I died a disproportionate amount of times. Sorry. My fault.
ENCAMPED
Crashed on startup. There was an error message but I don't think I'll bother.
ITS SAFER HERE
No, its not. The sky is all black, you'd think the sky was set to black. But I know it isn't. Because I did the quicksave-quickload thing, and the sky appears as normal. But then all the world brushes disappear, and that's even worse. So I played through without messing with the sky, but that came back to bite me and always crashed HL at a specific point in the second map. From what I played it seems to borrow heavily from Half Life 2, which is very nice. Very nice.
LABCOATS REQUIRED
A very basic map. Most rudimentary of all in the mod package. But I admit it's better than what I can come up with.
SECOND WIND
This is the one with the cliff, right? Oh, yes. Another reason why jaw dropping scenery is not good for Mr. plays-HL-in-software-mode. At one point with the gargantua, I searched and noclipped for how to advance, but couldn't find it. Eventually, I saw a ladder that was very subtly hidden, and I find I couldn't even see it from where I came from. But I refuse to switch to openGL.
COIL
I got hopelessly lost. But I admit the architecture is superb. But that doesn't change the fact that I got hopelessly lost.
SCEPTER OF RA
I like custom content. But it sucks with the locust storm outside the tomb. Why? Because the locust storm drives the framerates down, just like if you fall off the cliff in SECOND WIND. By now you're wondering if I'm using a windows 98. I am not going to answer that.
STARLABS
Good mapping. At one point the rocks fall and crumble the area but the rocks didn't fall and nothing crumbled the area. Therefore I was hopelessly stuck.
TRAINING MAP
The bane of all maps. Everything went well until up to the top floor. I went out side, and soon as I hit the "storm" button, everything freezes. And that's worse than crashing because I couldn't even see the task manager when I try to force close the program.
Main idea: The maps all are top notch, but my comp couldn't keep up with them. I blame my comp for this mess.